1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to video compression and more particularly to a system and method for compressing video from a video source and then reformatting the compressed video to mimic or simulate uncompressed video with a lower bandwidth than the uncompressed source video and transmitting the compressed video via a video infrastructure that is incapable of supporting the uncompressed source video.
2. Background Art
There are various types of digital video interface standards in use today that are used to transfer and switch uncompressed video and audio signals from one piece of equipment or another. HDMI®, HDBaseT®, and DisplayPort are examples of such interfaces.
Equipment intended to communicate with these video interfaces is necessarily designed with components available at the time of the video system design. Such equipment transmits the uncompressed video and audio signals bit by bit over long distances using various connectivity technologies such as fiber optics, copper transceivers, and radio waves. Examples of such connectivity technology include HDBaseT, Omron's optical subassemblies, and Owlink. Further, there is also equipment designed for switching video data signals, such as small 2×1 switchers and very large crosspoint matrix switchers. Some switchers are dedicated to a specific video format like HDMI, other switchers are modular and include plug-in cards, and still other switchers are fiber switchers that are agnostic to the video data that passes therethrough. The cost of an installation that includes a large matrix switcher, interface boxes that extend the signal transmission distance, and cabling can be large.
All of the above-described transmission and switching technologies have limitations. Either they have a bandwidth limit or are only compatible with video formats/interfaces that were known at the time the product was designed and sold. Inevitably, new video formats/interfaces are introduced that exceed the capabilities of existing equipment or cabling, thus rendering such equipment or cabling obsolete. Consequently, there exists a need for a system and method for extending the life of existing video equipment and cabling as new high resolution video formats emerge.